Panic comes before a fall
On April 15th 2022 I woke up in Llandudno, North Wales, at around 7am. After finishing work the day before, I’d driven over for a short Easter weekend holiday with Sammy (my wife). An adventure holiday, I kept calling it. We’d do our usual: Snowdonia hiking, something a bit quirky (a zip wire experience was booked in for saturday) and of course we’d find some quaint, little hipster bars so I could sample my fair share of local pale ales.
I woke Sammy to find her feeling really unwell. Not to drag a coughing, spluttering and phlegmy wife up a mountain I told her to rest. I’d do a quick hike and come back to meet her in the late afternoon. ‘I’ll probably head to Snowdon, see you around 3.’
As I drove from Llandudno to the mountains it became increasingly obvious that, actually, Mount Snowdon itself would be heaving. I need to do something a bit quieter, I thought, that way I can get parked and avoid the tourists. I remembered reading that Tryfan was quite a challenging hike. A scramble route would give me a bit of a challenge. Class, I thought, I’ll smash through that, come back and enjoy all the well-earned hazy pints and not feel guilty. Game on.
I parked the car at the foot of Tryfan (with some difficulty after the first four car parks were full) and started my ascent. The first twenty minutes were fine. Standard, really. Then things quickly got tough.
Usually when Sammy and I hike, we go up a mountain’s tourist path. If you’re not too familiar with hiking, a tourist path is basically the mountain’s most well-trodden and reliable trail. It’ll not always be easy but it’ll usually have a steady increment and clear path to follow. All of my favourite hikes (Skiddaw, Helvellyn, Scafell Pike etc) have tourist paths and I don’t usually deviate from them. On this particular day, I did.
Twenty minutes into ascending Tryfan’s North Face I realised I wasn’t really on a path. I found myself climbing rather than walking. Scrambling, rather than hiking. Ascending the mountain involved pulling my body up onto boulders, using my arms and hands as much as my feet and legs. Had it not been for the groups above me, further into the hike, I might have sacked this one off. But if you know me you’ll know I can be a right determined (cough, stubborn, cough) bastard who likes to finish what he starts.
After about an hour into the hike I met a family. Mum, dad, son, daughter. The kids, I’d say, were probably about 10 and 12. Not too old at all. We got chatting and quickly hit it off when I learned that the mother’s mum had just finished a stint as a Newcastle bishop, so they were well-versed in all things Geordieland. Giddy toon pub-chat with the father ensued and they quickly invited me to climb with them. Having hit some tricky patches and feeling a little lost, I gratefully accepted.
I hiked with the family for over an hour. Ascending to a false peak, a part of the mountain before the top, I could see Tryfan’s summit shrouded in mist as the rain began to fall. This is too fucking hard, I thought. How the hell are these kids doing it so easily?
Deciding I’d be super-safe and responsible, I said my goodbyes to the family and decided to descend alone. To continue would add hours on to the climb and, really, I wanted to go back to check on Sammy. It had worried me that I had no 4G or phone signal to keep her updated on my whereabouts, so I didn’t want to be out too late. We were already past lunchtime at this point.
The descent was horrendous. I couldn’t see a soul on my way down the steep, jagged rocks. What the fuck am I doing, I thought. I could hear my mam in my head: ‘Jamie, you do too much. Just take it easy man.’ Mams know best; this wasn’t enjoyable. As I kept going down I realised how dangerous it really was. At one point I slipped and the adrenaline jerked in. Right, screw this, I’m scooting down on my bum, I decided.
About an hour went by. Thank god. The road! I can see it. I’m not too far from the bottom. Phew. I kept scooting down on my bum until I reached a very steep, what I can only describe as, rock shoot. I’d have to go down this in a vertical position and put my hands and feet either side of the shoot. But this wasn’t the way I came, I thought to myself. There’s no other way though Jamie, crack on. Come on son. After gratefully getting down the shoot, I caught my breath and walked a little further.
Dropping down another steep bit of terrain, I could see some hikers below coming up. Phew, all good. Not alone. Yet when I dropped down I found myself on a ledge. A ledge no longer or wider than a dining room table. Shit. This isn’t right. I tried to pull myself back up to go an alternate way. Nope. As I tried, the Earth crumbled in my hands. There wasn’t anything to give me any purchase to hoist myself back. Right, don’t panic. That leaves left, right or down. Left: a boulder and rock face. Right, jagged rocks. Down? Down could work but it’s steep.
The thing about panic is it can blind you. That hot, searing, sickly feeling that takes over your body isn’t good. Right Jim, deep breaths. Cool head. Come on. I started talking aloud to myself. ‘Right we can’t go that way, we can’t go this way. Check your phone, nope, ok, still no signal. Let’s not do anything stupid here.’
I waited for hikers to approach below. I asked for advice. The first group told me to shuffle to the right along the jagged rocks. This would mean moving sidewards and simultaneously shuffling my arms above me and my legs below me. No chance, I thought. Way too dangerous. One slip and I’d be dead.
A second couple approached and realised how worried I was. Deliberating and trying to decipher the nuance of the drop below, I decided the only way out of this was to scoot off the ledge I was sat on to the ledge below. A ten foot drop I estimated. Luckily the boulder to the left had some tree roots hanging off it. Right, this is the plan: I throw my bag down so I have more balance, I slide off the end, grab the roots to slow me and I land below. I can do this. I have to. There’s literally no other way. I talk through the plan with the hikers below over the next ten minutes. I meticulously plan exactly where my feet will go, how my body will twist accordingly. This could result in some bruises and scrapes but it’ll work. It’ll work.
It’s worth saying that I’m not trying to write a fictional tale here to excite you; let’s be brutally honest, this isn’t an exciting story. If anything it’s a story of an accident, of misfortune and, ultimately, of sadness. Anyway I digress, we were getting to the good part weren’t we? The fall.
The last thing I remember is sitting over the ledge. Legs dangling. Heart pounding. Plan in place and ready to get unstuck. Unfortunately, like life, things didn’t go to plan.
I have replayed this moment in my mind countless times. Even now, months later, I couldn’t tell you exactly how it unfolded but from what I’ve pieced together…
I jolted from the ledge, landed on the intended ledge below (where I’d dropped my bag, where I planned to land) although the momentum of the fall took me further than expected. Instead of falling ten feet, I’m told I fell over thirty.
I hit my intended ledge and pinged straight off it, falling further down the mountain. I have no memory of this. With each fall my back and bum took the brunt of it, so we aren’t talking about a vertical or tumbling head over heels fall; rather, I reckon, it must have been more like a diagonal bump and skid. Rock and roll eh? Good job I survived. I don’t think I could have coped with the gravestone: Here lies Jamie Hardesty, who died after a ‘diagonal tumble’ down a mountain. Badass.
What happened immediately after the fall was, as obvious as this will sound, quite frankly, confusing. As I recall, I go from sitting on the ledge to waking up, lying on my back. Confused. Sore. Dazed. Frankly, fucked.
I awoke to a girl screaming and the frantic sound of footsteps. I opened my eyes and saw my bag way, way above me. What the hell? It was below me a second ago…
I tried to sit up. I couldn’t. I look at my legs. Inanimate. I moved my hands, both covered in blood. This isn’t good. A man a little older than I approached, stooped over me and looked at me directly.
‘You’ve had a fall, it’s going to be ok. Can you tell me your name, do you know where you are, do you know what day it is?’
What the fuck is he talking about, I thought? Of course I know my name. ‘I’m Jamie. I’m on Tryfan. It’s friday. I… shit… I think I’ve broken my legs.’ My head was sore and I could feel blood slowly dripping down one side of my forehead. ‘I… I don’t, I don’t know what’s happened?’
It’s strange, for the first three or four weeks following the accident I couldn’t think about it without tearing up. Without trying to make sense of it. Without beating myself up for being a fucking idiot. Should I have gone down and twisted my body a different way? Should I have stayed put? Should I have done this? Done that? Why didn’t I stay at the hotel with Sammy? Why didn’t we just stay in Newcastle?
—
For weeks afterwards my mam told me, repeatedly, look, Jamie, it was an accident. Accidents happen. You’re the biggest planner I’ve ever met in my life. Some things, though, you just can’t plan. Some things are beyond your control. It took a long time but finally, I accepted the words. As shit as the situation is, it’s happened and regardless of how I twisted my body or moved my feet, I still had the humpty dumptiest of great falls.
—
‘Ok Jamie, we’re going to try and get you some help. Can you tell me where the pain is?’
The pain. Shit, yes. Pain. Wow. I’d never had pain like it. Lower back. Left shoulder. Head. Chest. Sides. Everywhere. Not legs though. Legs are ok. What the hell? How can broken legs be ok?
‘It’s not your legs Jamie, it’s your back. I… I think you’ve broken it. You can’t move ok, stay still for me. I’m Jack. It’s going to be ok.’
Jack’s partner would go down to the bottom of the mountain to try and get signal to call for help. Luckily — and I mean luckily — the lady would bump into an older gentlemen walking his sheep dog. The guy had a hiker’s radio and would call in the accident to the closest mountain base. The base would then get in touch with the coastguard to send an air ambulance.
‘Jamie there’s an air ambulance coming, we’re going to get you out of here. It’s going to be ok. Talk me through how you feel…’
I was cold. Struggling to breath. Sore. Fuck, so so sore. My back. Had the bones popped out and pierced my skin? This is going to sound daft but one of the girls had some paracetamol. Many factors contributed to saving my life that day; the paracetamol — perhaps only in placebo format — helped.
‘Jack… how long ’til the ambulance? Be honest.’ Jack told me it would be an hour and a half.
Noticing my breathing getting worse and the pain increasing, Jack tried to distract me. Where do you live? What do you do for a living? What’s your wife called? How did you meet? Do you hike a lot? The questions flooded in. I responded to all of them. Taking deep breaths in between, as instructed. I held Jack’s hand tightly. I looked into his eyes and asked, ‘mate… I’m going to die, aren’t I?’ Course not mate, he said. It’s only a fall.
I started to think about Sammy. She doesn’t know where I am. I’ve got the car. I can’t get through to her. My bag is on a ledge above, it’s got my phone in. I’m… I’m not going to see her again. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. I can’t breathe.
‘I need to call my wife.’
‘Ok Jamie, no problem. What’s her number?’
‘I… I don’t know. I know Alex’s number (Alex is one of my best mates, he’s had the same number since we were about 11 years old), he’ll get through to her.’
As I waited for an update on Alex my breathing started to worsen. A lung had collapsed. I could feel my self getting colder. The people around me, the brilliantly kind strangers, put coats over me.
You fucking idiot, Jamie, I thought. It seems strange to say it but one prevalent emotion in that initial moment was embarrassment. In fact, I was ashamed. Ashamed I’d fallen, embarrassed I’d ruined these people’s days and was effectively ‘that guy’ who would be putting a strain on vital services like the air ambulance.
Waiting for that helicopter felt like forever. The more time went on, the more pain I felt. Panic intensified. Where is it? What’s happening? I… I can’t do this. I don’t know if I can hold on.
— -
They say Pride comes before a fall. Nope. Not in my experience. It’s panic. Panic before, panic during and panic after.
